Comments on: Is Reality Predicated on Perception?

By: Scott W. Somerville

Scott W. Somerville — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:24:24 +0000

I finally worked up the courage to start reading about quantum physics after I turned 40, and it was just as weird as I expected it to be. After several years of trying to learn the basics, I came to the conclusion that the counter-intuitive things I was learning might solve some REALLY big questions. John Wheeler (the physicist who coined the term “black hole”) had a couple of CRAZY ideas which, if taken seriously, would solve “the Goldilocks problem” and completely answer all the “Intelligent Design” arguments. But every time I tried to ask a practicing physicist about Wheeler’s hypothesis, I got shut down. As a “mere amateur,” I felt like I could never demand the kind of attention it would take to get any real answers–and I just don’t have the time or budget to go off to get a Ph.D. in physics to pursue this.

Now I skim the table of contents of “Biocentrism” and see Lanza and Berman are referencing all the facts and findings that led me to my conclusions.

Then I skim through the 93 comments posted so far and realize that anything I wanted to say (which Lanza and Berman have now said, with all the requisite degrees) are still dismissed as “mysticism,” “flapdoodle,” “vitalism,” and the like.

It’s not that I was too stupid. It’s not that I didn’t have the right degrees. It seems like 93 commenters will dismiss things they don’t agree with BEFORE they take them seriously.

Which suggests that anybody who wants to do any real science better develop a thick skin and not worry about comments.

By: caestal

caestal — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:26:11 +0000

“Of course, I suppose many of the same erudite scientists who discuss this theory with firmly knit brows would laugh at me because I have personal faith in the God of the Bible who also tells me, “as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.””
Actually, many of those erudite scientists are men of faith, and have no problem with reconciling faith and science. Certainly, I don’t, though I can’t properly call myself a scientist (though I do consider myself a rational man). This is an attempt to grapple with infinity, and given how miniscule we are you have to expect things to be a bit…. vague.

By: Kim

Kim — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:37:57 +0000

Biocentrism is a type of vitalism: "a doctrine that the processes of life are not explicable by the laws of physics and chemistry alone and that life is in some part self-determining", from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism"

By: Lwizzel

Lwizzel — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:32:21 +0000

Mark Malone – where do you wargame? I’m into probability….

By: Amfortas

Amfortas — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:48:45 +0000

The point is, folks, that we don’t know.

We speculate and integrate. The questions of why and how, where and whence have been asked by the clever and the dim since way back when and I very much doubt that we will have answers any day soon.

Meanwhile we form our ideas, take old ones and give them a new spin, cook them this way and that, add a little particle seasoning and serve it up again. Do we do it with some pessimism or optimism is the real day to day question.

God is in His Heaven and I am down here eating toast. And I thank Mike for getting my attention again.

By the way, if you have some time on your hands, listen to my podcasts. They are listed on the MND front page – scroll down to where it says Pod-Spot. They won’t tell you much about God and the Universe but they will tell of pressing problems that YOU CAN do something about. You will be rewarded here on Earth for your attention. My voice has been likened to Christopher Hitchens, Sir David Attenborough and Sir Sean Connery. Wrong of course. Actually, they sound a bit like me.

By: Delia

Delia — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 01:17:55 +0000

I think therefore I am-

REHEHEHEHEAAAAAAAAALLY stoneeeeeeed.

By: gclarke

gclarke — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:01:05 +0000

A reprise of Kierkegaard … Nietsche … Schrodinger … Plato … Kant … Bishop Berkeley … Descartes … The Bible … Empedocles … Jung? Nah, I think Yogi Berra’s thinking was closer to this theory than any other. When asked by Mrs. Berra where he wanted to be buried, either at his birth place, St. Louis, near their current home, New Jersey or in the Bronx, Yogi simply told his wife: “Just surprise me.”

By: Kim

Kim — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:23:38 +0000

If biocentrism has a psychological meaning, it is the recurring iron dream, symbolized by the concussion of thousands of goosestepping boots, all hitting the pavement in unison, in the attempt to project reality out of consciousness.

By: Anthrope1

Anthrope1 — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:01:37 +0000

I think many readers have lost the point of Biocentrism — which is that reality is rather like Jungian Dream, wherein the elements of the dream represent independent projections of the self.

“The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul, opening into that cosmic night which was psyche long before there was any ego- consciousness, and which will remain psyche no matter how far our ego-consciousness extends.”…..Carl Jung

Biocentrism tells us that reality works something like this… except that in consciousness, the psyche somehow is the reality.

The take-away from this is not — as some would argue — a fall into Solipsism. Quite the contrary: I think Biocentrism is smoking gun for Intelligent Design.

By: misanthropicus

misanthropicus — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:29:34 +0000

Re #69/Tom Perkins RE #38: [...] Clearly, Marc Malone is a pseudonym for Ubu Roi, a la Angel Station. [...]

Perkins, Marc Malone is not Ubu Roi – but you definitely are a completely unpredictable Mexican fire-cracker.

Marie-Claude, you there? What your take on Perkins’ Jarry idiocy?